Koryo Social Class System

Yangban Class in Korea History
At the end of the Koryo and through the late Choson reign, a new social system has formed and eventually developed into what was called hereditary social classes. Let discuss these changes in social class system from late Koryo through late Choson. The late Koryo social class systems contained civil official, military official, peasants and lowborn. Whereas, in the Choson dynasty, a new class raised up as yangban class, which combine between powerful civil official and military aristocratic officials. Next, the commoners, who are farmers, fishers, and those that lost their right and free status. This group in Choson is similarly to peasants group in Koryo. Slavery, which stayed at the bottom of the social status chain, commonly known as slaves or employed in undesirable occupations. Identically, this group is resembled with lowborn in Koryo social class system. In …show more content…
Another example is for lowborn class, if one were born as a slave who found out that his parents owe money to a rich man and couldn’t pay off. This man or woman is instantly lost his freedom status and inherited slave status and could not escape his destiny of becoming a slave. One noticeable thing was peasants were not middle class, and lowborn was not low class. In the late Koryo system, these classes, which are peasants, and lowborn, in fact were very similar. Especially, a commoner or peasant can easily lost his/ her freedom due to unbearable taxation at that time and becoming a slave. Therefore the only different things between commoners and lowborn were only that they were free or not. For civil officials and military officials in late Koryo, there were a little different. Even though, it was still a hereditary system, which meant a father who worked as a civil/military official can pass down to his son the same rank where he worked before, but because there were ranks and orders in civil/military units, therefore one could reach a